sunrise through the window pane
by xLittle Black Star
Summary: Darkness brings back all the old fears again. :: post-tartarus, annabeth!centric oneshot. R&R.


**Notes1:** So guess what: I actually had to cut this down because it was _too long. _That _never _happens to me! It's still perhaps overly descriptive and wordy and maybe even too long, but I must release all my emotions somehow. Oh my gosh guys freaking Tartarus, THE FEELS, GUYS, THE FEELS.

**Notes2:** Uhm also can I get an award for writing first person Annabeth, orr…?

**song choice: **_Shake It Out, _Florence + The Machine

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Sometimes, the darkness is still hard to take. It feels alive, somehow, actively searching for something to devour, searching for some poor lost girl who still hasn't quite found the strength to face her own demons. It doesn't scare me the way it used to—thankfully I've outgrown that phase—but for me, darkness will always symbolize something sinister, something evil that reaches from the depths just to insure that I'll never be completely sane or normal again.

It's been years since I finally felt strong enough to sleep with the lights off. It was slow, ridiculously difficult work, and I still feel ashamed that I let the fear get blown so far out of proportion. I craved the sunlight, which is to be expected, I suppose. After trekking so long in darkness so absolute, it burned my eyes and stung my skin, but I welcomed anything that wasn't cold or dark or damp. I had always been more of a night owl myself (and teased mercilessly for it, mind you: it took me years to convince Leo Athena's children are not nocturnal creatures), but the absence of light was so hard to cope with afterwards; too much of a challenge to face. I made the mistake of letting the habit continue far too long, until I couldn't even walk into a room without flicking the lights on. It became rooted in me until it very nearly claimed my whole identity. I hadn't realized how much damage I was doing myself.

I spent the first week with the covers pulled up all the way to my chin, motionless and sweating like children do when they want their parents but are too scared to get out of bed, as though even rustling the sheets would alert a lurking monster to my defenseless body.

But I put my foot down: if I could find it in me to fly to Rome while attackers infiltrated my camp, my _home; _if I could take Kronos and stand face to face with Gaia, then I was certainly strong enough to deal with an irrational fear. Even though it's been so long, so so long since I've felt like myself—and it's difficult to think that I'll probably never be the same girl again—the war hasn't humbled me enough to let a phobia dictate my life. I suppose it's my way of feeling like I still have some control, even though The Fates swoop in every few years or so to smack me in the face with my own pride.

Sometimes, though, when I'm trapped between the door and the bed with only darkness filling in the gap, I still feel a little lost, a little helpless. Rays of light leaking in from the hallway skitter across the floor, shining on patches of the carpet and making it slightly more bearable. Still, my eyes haven't adjusted yet, and the hurricane that rages outside eliminates any natural light from the moon. We haven't lost power, but most of Long Island is out and I fear the worst of it hasn't hit us yet. I assume the storm is nothing but a godly pride related issue, sure to blow over in the next week or so, but for now we're left to suffer as a result of their immaturity and bad tempers. I'm not sure what the gods' problem is this time, and I do hope I never find out. I try my best to stay out of their predicaments: I've had my fill of those adventures. My name's got a solid spot in the history books already; I've accomplished everything a hero could possibly hope for, and then some. Truthfully, I have all the fame, all the respect and recognition I'd always longed for. My childish wishes on birthday candles and twinkling stars and 11:11 had come true, apparently. The thing they don't tell you about wishes, though, is that they come with a price. And if I'm honest, that price was a bit too high for me.

And when it's dark like this, silent and stiflingly _dark, _it brings back all the old fears, and panic clamps around my throat again. My muscles coil, bracing for something to brush against my shoulder or my calf, and my eyes narrow in preparation to pick out a dark frame scuttling in the shadows. I take a cautious step forward and lightning _cracks_—an arc of pure energy hissing through the sky, illuminating the entire room—followed by thunder closely on its heels, rolling and grumbling angrily. The walls whine and groan and instead of rushing forward and scrambling into bed, I freeze in place and my fingers fumble for the light switch, only to have my stomach drop when it doesn't flick on. The light in the hall goes off as well, and then I really can't see anything at all. The generators should be up and running any minute now—it's not very late, and I'm certain our stuffy neighbors won't waste any time in stampeding down the staircase and giving any available staff members a stern rebuke, as though they're somehow responsible that half the east coast is out of power—but this is enough to make my stomach plummet and force a small whimper from my throat.

"Percy?" I hiss, noting how young and timid my voice sounds, like I'm five years old and approaching an actual _boy _is the most daunting thing in the world, and not at all like a brave twenty-year-old calling out to her boyfriend of very nearly four years. Sometimes I think I am an impossibly old soul trapped in a young body—I have seen so _much_—but sometimes I feel like a child all over again, still shivering in the alley. A few years ago I probably would've hesitated to appear so vulnerable, even if it was just Percy, but everything we've been through together knocked that hesitation right out of me.

He won't answer. I can tell from his breathing that he's asleep, and if he can sleep through a hurricane then there's no way I woke him, so I call him again, a little more forcefully. On nights like these, I need his voice as an anchor, and if I just hear him I can forget about the blackness and walk toward him.

He shifts and mutters something halfway between "what's wrong" and "shut up and leave me alone," and I have to roll my eyes because it's hardly even ten and he would be nothing but concerned if I woke him up at three in the morning.

Obviously, our sleeping habits never fully recovered from Tartarus. It was impossible to tell time down there. And after we made it out, we had much more important things to focus on than our sleep cycles, so you really can't blame us.

To be honest, there are still quite a few traces of Tartarus in our lives. I returned to normal as quickly as possible, or at least, something like normal: anything that reminded me had to go. I scoured it out of my life, ripping the awful, torturous memories away, bleaching it from my brain and refusing to acknowledge it until months after the war. I'm sure that only scarred me more than necessary and falsely alarmed the people that loved me, but I can't fix it now. Scars don't heal, after all, they just live as reminders and hopefully fade over time. Percy took an altogether different approach, as he so often does. He, quite simply, gave into it. I daresay that scared me more than anything we'd seen down there. He was emotionless, _dead, _most days, speaking only when spoken to and spending a lot of time staring at nothing in particular. I was brash and temperamental, sometimes even hysterical. I'm sure the pair of us served to terrify every last one of our friends. To this day, no one has ever mentioned my behavior during that time period. I at least expected Leo to crack a joke about me and my complete mental breakdown, but even he has stayed quite. I guess we all just want to forget it.

The rain outside pounds harder and the wind sharpens, and I know I need to move forward but suddenly the idea of such a simple task feels very hard. And suddenly, this awful feeling of hopelessness presses down on my sternum and creeps its way through my skin, under my ribcage, into my heart. Will I ever be able to walk across a dark room alone? I thought I'd gotten better, I thought I was growing more like the Annabeth that fell in and not the Annabeth that came out. But this; this is ridiculous. I cannot keep living this way.

Lightning flickers across the sky once more and thunder booms, rattling the walls with its mighty sound. This time, I suppose Percy can't ignore it and he sits up, apparently searching for me.

"Annabeth?" he asks softly, no longer muffled or annoyed, but gentle. Reassuring. "Where are you?"

"Here," I manage. My feet are still glued to the spot, but I don't feel quite so anxious now.

"Come on," he urges. "it's not far."

It seems so far.

Certainly he can't see where I'm standing in the darkness, but he knows exactly where I am just the same. I'm sure he can picture my exact posture and facial expression from memory. This is not the first time we've found ourselves in this situation, and I doubt it will be the last. Both of us have our bad moments, and neither of us has completely moved forward. But we handle it the same way we did in Tartarus: walking forward, using each other for support. And I know he won't leave me behind.

So I breathe. And I listen to his voice, and I hear his words, over and over again. This darkness is not menacing. This darkness is not sinister, it is not endless, it is not hopeless. And the air stops feeling so freezing against my skin, and my eyes stop playing tricks on me, and I can move again. I'm in my room, and Percy is waiting for me to reach him. Relief courses through my veins. I can do this.

I shudder as I crawl into the sheets. My body feels cold and clammy compared to his warmth, but he doesn't flinch, pulling me flush against him instead. I curl myself up tight and lean into him, feeling all my fear melt away. I usually feel silly and childish after I have a relapse, but not tonight. I have to accept it—embrace it, even—before I will have the option of moving on.

The real, hard, honest-to-gods truth, though, is that I'm not sure we ever will move on. There are some days when I believe Tartarus can fade to a story, or blur to a memory so crazy it's hard to believe it really happened. There are even more days when I desperately wish for this to happen. Then there are the times when I realize that our journey through Tartarus was necessary. Not just for the world, either, but for me. For us. Because now, I feel the sun and I smell the strawberry fields in a way I never did before. Now, the sky is so much bluer and the stars are so much brighter. I hear Percy's laugh and I see Grover's nervous blush and I feel the electricity Thalia shoots off when she walks into the room. There are the times when I appreciate my father's crazy grin and Sally's gentle smile and Piper and Jason's growing relationship, or the young kids who have just found a home at camp.

And I realize that for every single, solitary reason I have to be bitter and angry, I have a reason to be happy. For everything that's gone wrong there are an infinite number of things that have gone very _right._

And then there are the moments when I find Percy on the balcony, watching the sunrise come over the horizon. He does this often. I think—though he never says— that it's his way of feeling thankful, and how he recognizes that he's still alive. And he beckons to me and we talk, just talk, like we used to that very first summer, when the world was so promising and we were so young. We are awake and together while the world around us is sleeping. Those are the mornings when we talk about the future and what comes next—because we will have a future, we _do _have a future. And for the first time ever we are really and truly in control of it.

And in the morning the sun rises again, filling everything with light.

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**Notes3: **If you wanna do me a fave, don't judge my writing just by this fic...


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